TV group sees dark time if white space opened up

December 26, 2007|By Jon Van, Tribune staff reporter

When a Dallas TV station started transmitting digital signals a decade ago, five dozen wireless heart monitors at Baylor University quit working.

Baylor got different monitors, and no patients were harmed, but it's a story that Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters, still tells to argue against allowing electronic devices to operate on vacant TV channels.

"That was an unforeseen circumstance," Wharton said. "It shows how predictions of the way things will work don't always come true in the real world."

The nation's TV broadcasters are fighting Google, Microsoft and other high-tech firms that want to use vacant TV channels to carry high-speed data for a new generation of gadgets. Called "white space," over-the-air channels like 6 and 8 in Chicago are left vacant to prevent signals broadcast on Channels 5, 7 and 9 from interfering with one another.

But new digital technology and smart radios that sense whether broadcast channels are being used should enable low-power devices to use vacant channels without hurting TV reception, Internet-oriented executives argue.

Utilizing white-space channels will provide consumers with more affordable ways to access the Internet and encourage innovators to make nifty new wireless gizmos, said Brian Peters, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council. This would be especially useful in rural areas where high-speed Internet connections are scarce and vacant TV channels plentiful, he said.

"In the vast majority of the country, 80 percent of TV spectrum isn't being used," Peters said. "This is the beachfront property. Signals using it travel miles and miles and still penetrate walls."

Tech companies want white-space channels open for what the Federal Communications Commission calls unlicensed use. There are millions of unlicensed radio devices such as garage-door openers, cordless phones and automobile locking gadgets operating on spectrum less desirable than the white-space channels, Peters said.

Wi-Fi, the popular broadband wireless technology, is another example of unlicensed devices sharing spectrum.

Once America's TV broadcasters switch from analog to all-digital transmissions in February 2009, white-space channels should be open to unlicensed portable devices, Peters said.

The FCC plans to auction rights to use some spectrum that will be abandoned by TV broadcasters in the digital switch. Phone and cable TV operators, as well as Google and others, plan to bid for that spectrum, which will be licensed. But in addition to that new spectrum, tech companies and consumer groups want to open up some spectrum in the midst of where TV broadcasters will continue to send digital signals.

Whereas the licensed-spectrum auction is expected to raise billions of dollars, unlicensed use of white-space spectrum would be free for devices that meet government regulations. Much as Wi-Fi has proven wildly popular using unlicensed spectrum, advocates say that opening white space would provide consumers with affordable or free options for getting high-speed Internet service.

Glitch in Microsoft prototype

FCC regulators have approved in principle opening white space, and staff engineers are gathering information to prepare technical standards that wireless devices must meet to assure they don't interfere with digital TV transmissions.

But broadcasters have launched a vigorous publicity campaign aimed at the public and lawmakers, warning that TV viewers should brace themselves for program chaos if the FCC carries out its plans.

"Imagine you're watching the big game, and a the kicker is lined up and ready," said Wharton. "Then someone switches on a gadget somewhere in your neighborhood and you don't see the kickoff or anything else. This is going to give broadcasters a lot of trouble, and the consumer as well."

The FCC doesn't have enough people to enforce its regulations, and it won't be possible to trace the sources of interference, Wharton predicted.

To support his case, Wharton pointed to a test conducted by FCC engineers last summer using a prototype supplied by Microsoft. It didn't perform as designed and could have caused TV signal interference, he said.

"This much ballyhooed product delivery by Microsoft was an abject failure," he said.

White-space advocates, which include policy think tanks and consumer advocacy groups, say broadcasters always have opposed any innovative ways to use radio spectrum because they believe it is in their economic interest to do so. In the past, broadcasters opposed opening up spectrum to low-power community radio, satellite TV transmission and mobile phones, said Peters.

No problems with military use

Arguments that smart radios cannot use white space without causing TV interference are off the mark, said Michael Calabrese, vice president of the New America Foundation. The U.S. military uses this technology, he said.